Agreement also includes $18,000 civil penalty for improper storage, handling and record-keeping
Source:EPA Public Affairs
(Seattle–Aug. 25, 2014) SeaCast, Inc., a metal casting facility in Marysville, Washington, has agreed to pay The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a penalty of $18,000 to settle alleged hazardous waste violations at the company, which is located within the boundaries of the Tulalip Indian reservation.
As part of the EPA settlement, SeaCast will invest at least $230,000 to install and operate a production process “water blast” system that is expected to reduce in the amount of hazardous waste generated at the facility by 40 percent. SeaCast also agreed to implement procedures to prevent future violations of hazardous waste management requirements.
According to Scott Downey, Manager of EPA’s hazardous waste inspection unit in Seattle, strict compliance with federal hazardous waste storage and management requirements protects people and the environment.
“SeaCast has found a way to modify its production process and reduce its reliance on caustic cleaning solutions as a part of this settlement,” said Downey. “One of the central goals of the EPA’s hazardous waste program is to conserve resources and minimize the generation of hazardous wastes, so this project fits nicely.”
EPA alleged that SeaCast:
Failed to maintain records of its hazardous waste determinations.
Stored hazardous wastes at the facility without obtaining a permit or complying with conditions applicable to hazardous waste generators.
Stored hazardous waste on site for longer than 90 days, failed to maintain adequate aisle space between containers of hazardous waste, and failed to conduct required weekly inspections of hazardous waste storage areas. The company also failed to properly manage its universal waste lamps.
The final 30-foot section of the Glines Canyon Dam was destroyed by an explosion at 4:12 p.m. Tuesday when crews with Barnard Construction Inc. of Bozeman, Mont., detonated charges at the site.
“It’s done,” said Barb Maynes, spokeswoman for Olympic National Park. “We accomplished what was planned.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE — John Gussman,the Sequim-based cinematographer who has been documenting the $325 million Elwha River restoration/dam removal project and co-producer of “Return of the River,” a new film on the restoration — has posted a short video on Tuesday’s blast at Glines Canyon Dam. It’s embedded at the right.)
The blast set the waterway loose to return to its original riverbed in Glines Canyon for the first time since 1927.
The older, already destroyed Elwha Dam downriver was completed in 1913.
With both monoliths gone, the Elwha River is free to cut its own course — except for debris from Tuesday’s explosion — for the first time in more than a century.
“Concrete rubble remains and will be cleared from the channel in the coming weeks,” Maynes said.
Downriver from the blast, the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe celebrated the victory.
“It’s a good day. It was the last spot [blocking the] fish to access the rest of the river,” said Robert Ellefson, the Elwha restoration manager for the tribe.
“It has been the dream of tribal members for a hundred years,” Ellefson said.
The tribe will celebrate the river’s full opening in July 2015, during the traditional ceremony to welcome the Chinook salmon back to the Elwha River, he said.
Removing the 30-foot-tall stub of the dam was the last structural piece remaining of the $325 million Elwha River restoration project, which began in 2011 and will continue through 2016.
The destruction of the 108-foot Elwha Dam began in September 2011, and it was completely removed by March 2012.
The explosives packed into dozens of holes drilled into the Glines Canyon Dam’s remains demolished the mass of cement and rebar, much of which was covered in sediment washed down from the former Lake Mills that once existed behind the dam.
The site of the once-210-foot-tall dam built in 1927 is located 13 miles from the mouth of the Elwha River in Olympic National Park.
For the next six to eight weeks, Barnard Construction crews will scoop out concrete debris from the river channel to help re-establish the original riverbed levels and remove rebar and other debris left behind by the blasts.
Concrete from the dam will be trucked to the county road facility on Place Road where it will be pulverized and turned into road base.
Once the demolition and cleanup is complete, the park will continue replanting and restoration of the former lakebeds and begin working on the abutments on both sides of the dam site, which the park plans to open as public viewing areas — providing a 100-foot high viewpoint — by the end of 2014.
Plans include installing railings for visitor safety and interpretive signs, Maynes has said.
Removing the Elwha Dam, which was built 5 miles from the river’s mouth in 1913, was a slower process as demolition machinery ate away at the top of the dam notch by notch until it was reduced to a stub.
Both dams lacked fish ladders — a requirement in place at the time of their construction — and no longer produced enough electricity to be of use to the nearby communities that once depended on the river for all of their power needs.
The installation of the Elwha Dam eliminated the ability of salmon to access 65 of the 70 miles of salmon habitat.
Salmon runs on the river were reduced from more than 400,000 — including records of 100-pound chinook salmon — to only a few thousand, breeding in the lower tributaries and riverbanks.
A population of sockeye was trapped above the Elwha Dam, and colonized Lake Sutherland as kokanee sockeye, a smaller, freshwater variation of the species.
The kokanee are expected to begin returning to the sea and restore native populations of sockeye to the river.
Fish biologists have said that they expect all five salmon species native to the river will return.
Currently, the slope from the rapids near the former Glines Canyon Dam are too steep for the fish to get past the dam, but once the sediments are washed away to the level of the original streambed, a series of resting pools are expected to form along the canyon, enabling the fish to recolonize all 70 miles of river and tributaries.
Similarly, the millions of tons of sediment that should have been released from the Elwha River mouth has emptied into the Strait of Juan de Fuca to feed the beaches of Crescent Bay and Ediz Hook, were trapped behind the dams.
By 2011, the beaches were reduced to platter-sized cobbles and Ediz Hook was rebuilt with rip-rap by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to preserve access to the U.S Coast Guard station at its tip.
Since the removal of Elwha Dam and the reduction of Glines Canyon Dam, more than 80 acres of beaches have been built by those sediments at the mouth of the river, and on nearby beaches.
Mark Mulligan / The Herald A train of tank cars — each bearing the placard 1267, denoting that the tank carries crude oil — waits on the tracks going through Everett recently.
EVERETT — A surge in coal and oil trains through Snohomish County is a “coming crisis” which threatens to irreparably damage the quality of life in several communities unless addressed, the mayor of Edmonds warned Friday.
Drivers already face long backups at railroad crossings more often because freight rail traffic is increasing, and the situation will only worsen if plans for new oil refineries and a coal export terminal proceed, Mayor Dave Earling said.
“We all need to acknowledge it is a serious problem,” Earling said in opening comments at an event focused on coal and oil trains in the county. “I view it as a coming crisis and one we need to start taking care of today.”
The forum on the county campus began with supporters and opponents of the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal politely sparring over the economic good and the ecological bad of building it.
Seattle-based SSA Marine’s proposal for the terminal at Cherry Point is undergoing extensive environmental review now and, if approved, could be operating at full capacity in 2019.
By then, the terminal could be handling about 54 million metric tons of dry bulk commodities per year, most of it coal from the Powder River Basin in Montana.
That would add nine loaded trains per day heading to the terminal and nine empties coming from it. The trains are expected each to be about 1.6 miles long.
Ross Macfarlane, a program manager for Climate Solutions, and Eric de Place, a policy director for Sightline Institute, argued against the terminal, saying it runs counter to efforts by the state to pursue alternative sources of energy.
“It locks us into a dirty energy cycle that is extremely destructive,” de Place said.
But Terry Finn, a consultant with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, and Joseph Ritzman, a vice president of SSA International, countered that rejecting the terminal ignores the market reality that the potential purchaser of the coal, China, will buy coal elsewhere and burn it nonetheless.
“I don’t think it makes one iota of difference” in the world of energy, but it will mean a loss of jobs and economic development for Washington, Finn said.
The duos also disagreed about the threat of coal dust and the risk of derailments.
But it was the potential of more coal and oil trains tying up even more traffic on city streets that seemed foremost on the minds of elected leaders and residents in attendance.
A report issued by the Puget Sound Regional Council in July found that freight rail traffic in Washington is expected to grow 130 percent by 2035 — without the new coal terminal. That would amount to 27 to 31 more trains per day between Seattle and Spokane and up to 10 more per day between Everett and Vancouver, British Columbia.
The report amplified Earling’s concern. The city has two at-grade railroad crossings leading to the waterfront. When trains come through town and the crossing arms go down, access to the waterfront is cut off.
He said a 2005 report done for the city of Edmonds predicted the number of trains passing through the city each day could rise from roughly 35 to 70 by 2020 and 104 by 2030. That study didn’t factor in added rail shipments of coal and crude oil.
Edmonds isn’t the only city with concerns.
The mayors of Marysville, Mukilteo and Snohomish and an Everett city councilman attended Friday. So did Snohomish County Executive John Lovick.
“It is really a complex issue that impacts cities dramatically,” Snohomish Mayor Karen Guzak said.
Marysville could endure the most disproportionate impact of the surge in rail traffic because of its numerous at-grade rail crossings. Wait times could increase by as much as 147 percent per day within the city, the regional council study found.
A possible solution is to eliminate at-grade crossings by building overpasses or underpasses, known as “grade-separation” projects. But the regional council report estimates they would cost anywhere from $50 million to $200 million, paid for mostly with public money.
According to federal law, railroads only can be required to contribute up to 5 percent of that cost.
During a question-and-answer period, Reid Shockey of Everett, a member of the Snohomish County Committee for Improved Transportation, pressed Finn on whether BNSF Railway might put up a greater percentage of the cost of grade separation.
Finn said he couldn’t commit BNSF to any figure.
“I think it’s something that is negotiable,” he said.
PORT ANGELES, Wash. — The National Park Service is in the final phase of the largest dam removal in U.S. history, taking place on the Olympic Peninsula.
Just 30 feet of concrete dam stand between the Elwha River and its freedom.
And early next week, it’ll be gone.
A giant orange crane moves slowly overhead as Don LaFord looks down from a narrow walkway over the Elwha River.
LaFord, a contractor for the National Park Service, has overseen the dam removal project from the beginning in 2011. Two hundred feet below where he’s standing, the river rushes by, almost completely free. Almost.
“It’ll be a final dynamite shot,” LaFord says.
Don LaFord. Credit: Ashley Ahearn
So far, a little more than half of the millions of tons of muck and debris that were lodged above this dam have been released, turning the river a chalky gray color as it empties into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, 13 miles from where we’re standing.
“I spent most of my career building power plants and this is the first one that I’ve been on where we’re demolishing hydroelectric plants,” LaFord said.
When the dams are gone he says he might retire.
Although the dam removal workers will soon be departing, fish and wildlife are doing no such thing. Salmon, otters and bald eagles are arriving upstream from where the dams blocked the flow of this river for more than 100 years.
The park service plans to have walkways installed so the public can see the former Glines Canyon and Lower Elwha dam sites in the next few months.
These two images show the difference in the Elwha River’s flow from July 10 to August 1. The remaining dam is circled in yellow in each image. Now that flows have dropped enough to expose the concrete, dam removal can begin again. Credit: National Park Service.
It took some snorkeling and biological detective work to prove it.
But now Jeremy Romer and Fred Monzyk can confidently say they’ve found the first documented examples of Oregon chinook salmon spawning without swimming to the ocean and back.
The two Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists published their findings in an article this month in The North American Journal of Fisheries Management.
The discovery was the result of an investigation that started when they noticed something strange about the chinook salmon fishermen were catching in Green Peter Reservoir southeast of Corvallis: They looked wild.
In photographs printed in local newspapers and on the website ifish.net, several of the chinook being caught in the reservoir clearly had their adipose fins – little fins on their backs that are clipped off in hatcheries to mark the difference between hatchery fish and wild.
But there’s no way for wild fish to get to the reservoir.
The reservoir was created by Green Peter Dam on the Santiam River, a tributary of the Willamette. And the dam doesn’t have a route allowing fish passage to the ocean.
Up until 2008, the state had released excess hatchery chinook above the reservoir. But those fish were essentially trapped. They were only released so fishermen could catch them. And according to their biology, they should only have lived to 2012.
“Several pictures were of chinook captured in 2013,” Romer said. “That’s where the math didn’t add up because the last releases happened in 2008, and fish in the Willamette rarely live to age 6.”
So, the fish being caught in the reservoir couldn’t be the hatchery fish the state released in 2008 – not only because they had adipose fins but also because those fish were supposed to be dead already.
“One of the biggest clues was that we kept seeing photos in local newspapers of happy anglers with salmon we knew we didn’t put in there,” Monzyk said.
So, if these fish weren’t the hatchery chinook released by ODFW, where did they come from?
“It was an ideal opportunity for us to investigate,” Romer said.
The biologists went snorkeling and saw nine adult chinook salmon with their adipose fins intact. They also recovered six carcasses of wild-looking chinook. They ran tests to see if chemistry inside the fish indicated that they’d been to the ocean. It didn’t. Nonetheless, they found four female fish that appeared to have successfully spawned in 2012.
Their conclusion: The hatchery chinook released above the dam didn’t go to the ocean, but some of them spawned anyway. And fishermen were catching their offspring in Green Peter Reservoir.
“It’s another example of the resilience of chinook in the Pacific Northwest,” Romer said. “It’s pretty amazing that even though they can’t fulfill their regular pathways or life history they’re able to adapt and still reproduce. Like Jurassic Park, they’ll find a way.”
You may have heard of kokanee – they’re landlocked sockeye salmon. Chinook don’t usually evolve to live without going to ocean and back, Romer said. It’s been known to happen in a few places, but this is the first time it’s been documented in Oregon. Romer and Monzyk say it likely won’t be the last. They suspect a similar situation has already unfolded in Detroit Lake, southeast of Salem.
Steve Ringman / The Seattle Times What’s left of the 210-foot-high Glines Canyon Dam, a section of about 30 feet, is awaiting a final blast in September. In the distance, the bottom of former Lake Mills today forms part of the new Elwha Valley.
Fish are storming back to the Elwha, there’s a sandy beach at the mouth of the river again, and native plants are growing where there used to be lakes.
The last dam will be blasted out of the Elwha River sometime next month, cementing the hopes of generations of advocates and tribal leaders who fought to make it happen.
With the concrete out, the long-term revival of a legendary wilderness valley in the Olympics can now unfold unfettered after 100 years dammed.
The watershed already is springing back to life from the mountains to the sea: Salmon are swimming and spawning miles above the former Elwha dam site. Alders stand more than head high as the native forest reclaims the former lake beds. There’s a soft, sandy beach at the river mouth, where before there was only bare cobble. And birds, bugs and mammals are feasting on salmon eggs and carcasses as fish once again nourish the watershed.
The Elwha is a rare chance to start over on a grand scale. The $325 million federal project, begun three years ago, has reopened 70 miles of habitat for steelhead and salmon, rebuilt wildlife populations and restored native plants. The river is hard at work with its restored natural flow, rebuilding its plunge pools, log jams and gravel bars.
While it will never be the Eden it was, the Elwha one day likely will be pretty darn close — and sooner than many expected.
“It goes against my deepest notions of how fast ecosystem recovery can possibly happen,” said Christopher Tonra, a research fellow with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center in Washington, D.C., who is tracking the response of dippers, a native, aquatic songbird, to dam removal in the Elwha. “We are all trained, as biologists, to think of things over the long run. I am not saying the Elwha is fully recovered. But it is so mind blowing to me, the numbers of fish, and seeing the birds respond immediately to the salmon being there. It makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.”
Early hydropower
The dams were built beginning in 1910 for hydropower, but lacked fish passage. It took an act of Congress, passed in 1992, to finally take down Elwha Dam and then Glines Canyon Dam, about eight miles above it.
Unbuild it, and they will come: Salmon have been storming back ever since Elwha Dam was blasted out of the way in March 2012. Taking down Glines Canyon Dam has taken longer, in part because it holds back a larger load of sediment.
Managing the release of about 27 million cubic yards of sediment as the dams come down is why removal has taken so long. There was so much sediment stuck behind the former Glines Canyon Dam alone that, stacked up, the pile would tower more than twice the height of the Empire State Building, notes Jonathan Warrick, of the U.S. Geological Survey.
The dams were lowered notch by notch, allowing the river to naturally flush about half the total sediment load downriver and out to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
There have been bumps along the way. A water-treatment plant — the single most expensive part of the project — failed when a critical intake clogged with debris rinsed out by the river, delaying removal by a year while repairs were made.
The tribal hatchery and federal fish-restoration plan, which includes stocking of some hatchery fish, have been a magnet for lawsuits and controversy.
But nature, meanwhile, has carried right on.
Ian Miller, a coastal hazard specialist based in Port Angeles for Washington Sea Grant, has been monitoring the beach at the river mouth.
The surprise to him isn’t the big volume of sediment the Elwha is delivering downstream, but the fact that it is sticking around. “Basically, this is all new land,” Miller said, walking the beach east of the river mouth on a recent visit. “Everything here is less than two years old. You can walk to (sandy) spots on the beach that are 30 feet deep. It is just a dramatically different system.”
A beach that used to be too rocky to comfortably walk on is today used by kids to play soccer.
Meanwhile, fat chinook salmon are cruising up the river. Staff from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife started working the Elwha in July with a gill net to eventually capture 1,600 big Elwha fall chinook. The fish, of both wild and hatchery origin, are taken to stock the next generation of Elwha fall chinook raised in the state rearing channel, used since the 1970s to preserve the unique Elwha strain.
Stars of the river
Working the fast current was a fish rodeo to capture, then quickly take the powerful, thrashing fish from the net unharmed. Long and thick as a thigh, the chinook, the largest in the Puget Sound region, are the celebrities of Elwha River restoration, and a major reason for dam removal.
Elwha fish populations are projected to grow from about 4,000 to 400,000 over the next 20 to 30 years. Salmon already have hatched and migrated up- and downstream of the former Elwha dam site for the first time in a century.
Revegetation — the most visible piece of the Elwha renewal project — also is unfolding dramatically. Already, terraced banks of the former lakes are burgeoning with alder and cottonwood, the gift of seeds carried by the lakes as they gradually were lowered during the drawdown that started dam removal.
Most difficult to revegetate are the cobbly, gravel flats of the lake bed farther upstream, in the former Lake Mills, a land where many a planted Douglas fir and other seedlings have gone to die.
But in other spots, cottonwood seedlings have established so thickly they look like a lawn. Alder trees seeded in 2011 as lake levels dropped now have grown more than head tall. Where there used to be bald sand, goldenrod buzzes with bees, and a young, stocky Nootka rose bush conceals a bird’s nest full of eggs.
In all, more than 500 acres of former lake bed are being replanted, with nearly 60 varieties of native grasses, flowers, woody shrubs and trees from the Elwha Valley through 2018.
Dam removal also is kick-starting broader effects in the ecological systems of the watershed, from its food chain to the home ranges of animals.
Kim Sager-Fradkin, wildlife biologist for the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, already has tracked fish-eating otters to parts of the Elwha that salmon have recolonized since dam removal, and documented an increase in the otters’ nutrient levels derived from fish.
John McMillan, a biologist with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries walking the tributaries since dam removal began, said that in the first year he saw salmon carcasses on the riverbank. But now he doesn’t because the otters, bears, cougars, bobcats and mink have learned to take advantage of food where for so many years there was none.
“The ecological relationships between the animals are coming back,” McMillan said. To me, that is such a great feeling.”
Walk the river
Take a walking tour of the Elwha River with Park Service rangers on the former Lake Aldwell. Tours are on Tuesdays and Sundays at 1 p.m. through Sept. 2. The hourlong walks are free, and begin at the former boat launch at the end of Lake Aldwell Road, north off of Highway 101 just west of the Elwha River Bridge. For more information, call 360-565-3130.
Courtesy Hoopa Valley Tribe Chairperson Danielle Vigil-Masten and Tribal Council members took Bureau of Reclamation officials and Supervisor Ryan Sundberg on a boat down the Trinity River in Hoopa.
Dropping water levels and rising temperatures in the persistent California drought have tribal members concerned about a fish kill—and, some say, fish are already dying.
The Hoopa Tribe is pressing for a release of water from the Trinity River, which feeds the Klamath. Hundreds of tribal members from the northern coast of California, along with river conservationists, traveled to the state seat in Sacramento on August 19 to urge officials to reconsider their decision to stop pre-emptive water releases.
Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley tribal members joined with people from the Klamath Justice Coalition, coming by the busload, according to the Times-Standard.
It was the second attempt at confronting officials to try and get the message across. On August 11 others showed up in Redding, California, at a press conference on wildfires to ask U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell directly to authorize such a move.
Tribal members are looking for a release of Trinity River water out of Lewiston Dam, they said in a release. The Trinity is the Klamath River’s main tributary. They are worried about a fish kill on the scale of one that occurred in 2002, also for lack of water and a too-high temperature. Tens of thousands of otherwise healthy fish died that year, under very similar conditions.
“The Klamath fish kill of 2002 led to poor salmon returns devastating west coast fisheries for years afterward,” said Dania Colegrove, Hoopa Tribal member and activist with the conservation group Got Water, in a statement. “Since then tribes, scientists and the Department of Interior have worked together to avert fish kills by preventively releasing water during drought years.”
Many say they are already seeing dead fish. They fear that a release once that starts happening would not come in time to stop disease from spreading. Though Jewell met with the protesters after the press conference, she did not agree to release water.
“There is an opportunity to do emergency releases, if we see the temperature rise,” Jewell said to the group at the press conference, according to the Times-Standard. “We’ll make sure that people come out and there is an opportunity to see it. We are dealing with profound drought all over. We’re dealing with it in the Klamath. So, I’ll follow up. Also, I want you guys to understand the biggest issue is the lack of water.”
Two days later, though, Jewell sent a federal team to tour the river along with Hoopa Valley Tribe experts. On August 14, Bureau of Reclamation Regional Director David Murillo and Assistant Regional Director Pablo Arroyave toured the river. In addition the Humboldt County Fifth District Supervisor, Ryan Sundberg, added his voice to that of the Hoopa Valley Tribal Council and Chairperson Danielle Vigil-Masten, calling for immediate water releases into the Trinity River, according to a release from the Hoopa Valley Tribe.
“It affects the economy throughout the county when the fish are threatened,” Sundberg said in the statement. “It’s a diverse County and a diverse Board of Supervisors, but everyone is united on this issue.”
YouTube/Yurok youth video This is what the Klamath River looked like in 2002, when conditions were similar to those present now. Releasing water from the Trinity River into the Klamath would cool it down and raise water levels, enabling fish to survive.
So says one teen in this video put together by Yurok youth who, fearful of a fish kill on the Klamath River in California, went out and interviewed tribal leaders as well as those who witnessed mass fish death in 2002.
Water levels are low in the river, and the temperature is rising. Fish, especially salmon about to spawn, congregate in the cooler water, and their proximity can spread disease—which gets cultivated in warmer water. In 2002 this resulted in the deaths of 60,000 to 80,000 fish, crippling fisheries and severely compromising sustenance fishing.
Members and leaders of the Hoopa Valley, Karuk and Yurok tribes have confronted U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell about the decision not to release water from the Trinity River into the Klamath. They have also protested outside state government buildings in Sacramento.
“The Klamath River is on the brink of another massive fish kill,” claim the makers of this video.
The river smells terrible, one girl describes, and the salmon, while alive, had gills that “looked weird to me,” she said. “It made me angry and broke my heart, seeing that happening.”
The river looks sad and sick, said a Yurok man, recalling when it used to be a glorious emerald green, when he was a child. Now it’s green, alright—neon toxic green with things floating in it.
“It’s pretty sad,” he said.
Much of the video is devoted to recounting what transpired during the 2002 fish kill, then drawing parallels between the conditions then and now. Is the Klamath River on the brink of another fish kill? Wathc Yurok youth investigate, below.
Doctors, tribal leaders, business owners and concerned parents are among those cheering a potentially major blow to Big Coal.
On Monday, an Oregon state agency announced its rejection of a permit for a coal export facility on the Columbia River. The proposed Coyote Island Terminal is one of three remaining projects being pushed by the fossil fuel industry to create a coal export superhighway through the Pacific Northwest. Three previous proposals have already been dropped.
The Oregon Department of State Lands cited disruption to waterways and harm to tribal fisheries among its reasons for the refusal, which makes future approval of the port unlikely but still possible if the company pursuing the project files a convincing appeal.
Tom Wood, owner of the Rivertap Restaurant and Pub in The Dalles, Oregon, called the news a “landmark victory for our community, as well as communities across the nation.”
About three years ago, Wood and his son, Aiden, then 9, were salmon fishing on the Columbia River. As they returned to their car, Aiden spotted small clumps of coal near some railroad tracks.
“We brought a pile home and lit them on fire,” Wood recalled. “You know, the fun things you do with coal.”
He soon realized that the coal likely came from the open rail cars that shuttle along the Columbia River to Canadian ports. That recognition helped push him to join with thousands of others across state, economic and political lines who have tried to thwart the proposed increase in the number of these coal trains rolling through the region. The mile-plus-long trains originate at mines in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana and head west to meet up with Asia-bound ships. Opponents, who have been protesting and signing petitions for a few years now, worry that more coal trains could ultimately lead to problems ranging from local traffic delays and health harms due to air pollution, to faster climate change as a result of more coal-burning overseas.
Proponents of the coal ports, meanwhile, contend that greater exports mean needed jobs and tax revenues for struggling Western towns and Native American reservations.
“We do have to balance the health of our community with the need for commerce,” said Wood. But he argued that the former is more critical in the long term, including for his son’s future. Referring to the permit rejection, he said, “The win is a testament to the power and dedication of countless Northwest families to assure that these dirty, dangerous projects don’t take root for short-term gains.”
The U.S. has seen a steady decline in domestic coal use in recent years thanks to tighter federal regulations and the expanded viability of natural gas and renewable energy. But the rise of coal-hungry economies in China, India and other fast-developing nations offers a promising alternative market for coal companies. If government agencies eventually grant approval to all three export terminals proposed for Oregon and Washington, up to 100 million metric tons of the combustible rock per year could soon pass through the Pacific Northwest. The Coyote Island Terminal on the Port of Morrow at Boardman, Oregon, would account for less than 10 million metric tons of that total.
Ambre Energy, the Australian-based company pursuing the project, told The Huffington Post in a statement that it disagrees with Oregon’s “political decision.”
“We are evaluating our next steps and considering the full range of legal and permitting options,” added Liz Fuller, an Ambre Energy spokeswoman.
With the door still open for the Coyote Island Terminal to be approved, as well as for the other two port proposals in Washington state, opponents are voicing somewhat restrained optimism.
“This is a relatively small amount of coal compared to the other proposals,” said KC Golden, senior policy adviser for the nonprofit Climate Solutions. But he added that the formal permit denial is still a “very big deal.”
“It’s a terrific affirmation of what, in some ways, ought to be obvious,” said Golden. “This is a profoundly bad idea for the Northwest and for the world.”
Among the most vocal opponents have been Native American tribes whose reservations lie in the coal trains’ path.
“Yakama Nation will not rest until the entire regional threat posed by the coal industry to our ancestral lands and waters is eradicated,” JoDe Goudy, the Yakama tribal council chairman, said in a statement Monday night.
On Sunday, the Lummi Nation, whose reservation neighbors one of the proposed ports in Washington state, launched a totem pole journey — a road trip with totem pole in tow — that they hope will consolidate tribal opposition to Big Coal and Big Oil.
“Such decisions are few and far between,” the tribe stated in response to Monday’s announcement. “This is important not just for the Yakama and Umatilla but all Indian fishing tribes. Together we can, and will, protect our way of life.”
Meanwhile, there are other tribes that could benefit from coal exports. As HuffPost reported in January after the Lummi Nation’s first totem pole journey, the Crow Nation of rural Montana argues that it desperately needs to develop its coal reserves to lift its people out of poverty.
Dr. Robert Merchant, a pulmonologist in Billings, Montana, who deals with the health problems related to coal mining near his city, acknowledged the dilemma.
“There are a lot of people that would stand to have substantial gain from the extraction industry,” he said. But he also sees the high public costs associated with the industry.
Montana, Oregon and Washington are among Western states battling forest fires this summer and suffering the resulting poor air quality. Scientists warn that such blazes are becoming more frequent and intense with the changing climate and that coal plays a significant role in this shift.
Then there’s the blowback of toxic pollution from Asia’s coal-fired power plants. “Plumes come right across the Pacific,” Merchant said, noting that they can further contaminate the West’s air and water with toxins such as mercury.
Perhaps of most immediate concern to many opposed are the trains, barges and ships themselves, which block roadways for emergency vehicles, belch diesel fumes and blow coal dust. Diesel exhaust is known to worsen conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and may even raise the risk of certain cancers. The extent of the threat from heavy-metal-laden coal dust is less clear, although evidence is building.
The public health implications spurred more than 3,000 medical professionals and public health advocates to sign on to letters requesting denial of the Coyote Island Terminal permit. In Oregon alone, 165 physicians voiced their concerns to the governor.
“We are particularly concerned with the health of our most vulnerable populations: prenatal, early childhood, the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions,” they wrote.
Wood and his family live within a half mile of coal train tracks. Trains pass within 300 yards of his restaurant and within 50 feet of a winery he helps operate.
“It’s been a challenging fight,” Wood said, “and it’s far from done.”
Aug 18 (Reuters) – Veteran musicians Willie Nelson and Neil Young are teaming up for a benefit concert in Nebraska to raise funds in the fight against land being sold for the Keystone XL oil pipeline project, charity organization Bold Nebraska said on Monday.
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Nelson, 81, and Young, 68, both known for their ties to country rock and folk music and their environmental activism, will perform at the “Harvest the Hope Concert” on Sept. 27 at a farm near Neligh, Nebraska.
The farm is owned by Art and Helen Tanderup, who are campaigning against selling their land to TransCanada Corp to lay a pipeline that would carry crude oil from northern Alberta to refiners in Texas.
“Our family has worked this land for over 100 years. We will not allow TransCanada to come in here and destroy our land and water for their profit,” said Tanderup.
The concert is being hosted by Bold Nebraska along with Indigenous Environmental Network and Cowboy & Indian Alliance, comprising agricultural and tribal landowners who believe the pipeline will negatively impact the environment.
The Nebraska Supreme Court will hear arguments next month in a dispute over the planned 1,200-mile (1,900 km) planned route for the controversial $5.4 billion pipeline. A court ruling is not expected until 2015.
(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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